MLB.com's Carrie Muskat has been covering Major League Baseball since 1981 and is the author of "Banks to Sandberg to Grace: Five Decades of Love and Frustration with the Cubs." You can follow her on Twitter @CarrieMuskat. Here, she blogs about the Cubs.

5/24 Minor matters

Chris Rusin threw six shutout innings, striking out four and scattering six hits, in Iowa’s 4-0 win over Las Vegas. Logan Watkins hit his fourth home run, a two-run shot, and Josh Vitters had two hits.

Arismendy Alcantara hit his sixth home run to help Tennessee beat Huntsville, 2-0. Kyle Hendricks got the win, throwing seven shutout innings. He struck out seven and gave up three hits.

Zach Cates served up four runs on eight hits over five innings in Daytona’s 8-4 loss to Jupiter. John Andreoli had three hits and scored two runs, and Dustin Geiger notched his eighth multi-hit game of the season as well as his 40th RBIs.

Dillon Maples gave up eight runs (five earned) on six hits over 3 2/3 innings in Kane County’s 9-8, 14-inning loss to Peoria. The Cougars led 8-4 in the fourth. Albert Almora went 4-for-7 with two doubles and scored a run in his second game. Jeimer Candelario had two hits and four RBIs.

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4 Comments

Another major leaguer ties the great Soriano for the home run lead with 4!!! Oh, wait, my bad. Watkins is a MINOR LEAGUER and the home run lead I believe is juuuuuuust a few more than 4. OK, how about the homerun lead for Cubs’ CLEAN UP hitters? There you go!!!

The Marlins and the Astros might have Rusin in their rotation now, but that’s about it. I seriously don’t get why some Cubs fans think Rusin is so great. He’s 26, he’s been decent at best throughout his minor league career, he didn’t look all that great when he got a September call up last year, he has a far-from-spectacular 3.88 ERA this season at AAA Iowa. What about any of that says “most every other club would have him in their starting rotation by now?” And another thing, the Cubs starting pitching has actually been the strong point of this team and it just got better with Matt Garza back in the rotation.

As for “pushing these kids on up to AA and AAA so we can empty out all those has beens-never was guys,” why would you want to push them up? Why not wait until they are ready? I’d rather the Cubs get rid of the “has beens” and the “never was” players because their replacements are ready. Promoting players just for the sake of promoting them does not help anyone, and it could very well hurt that players’ development. They pay guys a lot of money to determine when a minor leaguer is ready to move up to the next level and I’m pretty sure the Cubs have a timetable for every minor leaguer in their system right now, so let’s just let the Cubs stick to that. Just because a player wins the Advanced-A league player of the week award for one week doesn’t mean they are ready for AA immediately.

Timetables are good Doug, good point. I think Mamma may have been speaking in general terms using Rusin as a spring board. When a young AAA player has a good couple of months it’s only natural to think about promoting him. Ironically the big league club is fine as far as starting pitchers, another good point you made. If that’s the case Rusin can be promoted and some current pitchers traded? Or include Rusin in a trade? That may be the point Mamma is suggesting? Not trying to twist your words Mamma, just elaborate on tthem….move this organization along one way or the other???

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